Last week we shared some thoughts about our preparations for Mandela Day. Well, that special day is tomorrow, 18 July, and so we wish to share a special story. A true story.
It was
1995. South Africa
had just seen the end of apartheid, the birth of democracy and the election of
a new President. As he came into power, he must have seen a Country almost on
the brink of civil war. Here were millions of people free and yet not free.
Something radical had to be done. As this great man, Nelson Mandela, toured the
townships, rural areas; cities, towns and villages, he heard their cries and he
saw their great frustration. He felt their anger, after years of oppression.
Many sort revenge. Mandela, or Madiba as he was affectionately called, had
suffered more than most, shut away on a tiny island, far from his family and
friends. Then it appears, he had an idea. Wearing a baseball type cap with the
Springbok emblem on it, he began to talk about it to the crowds which gathered
everywhere he went. He started to encourage them to think of a great game. The
game of rugby.
Now this
was no mean task, as the black people of South Africa were not generally
rugby fans. It was considered a white man's game but here was their new and
beloved President and leader, trying hard to change that. The 3rd Rugby World
Cup Tournament was looming and miraculously, South Africa had won the rights to
host this event. Not only that, but every match was to be played on South
African soil!. To top it all, the South African National team, the Springboks,
were allowed to compete!
Rugby fans throughout
the land were wild with excitement and anticipation. The cry rang out
"One team, one
country!"
When a
semi-final was played in Cape Town
at the famous Newlands Stadium, I was there! I stood on the grass in the middle
of that stadium and looked up at the crowd of almost 50 000. I thought I was
dreaming! But I was not there to take part in the game, however. I had an
unusual task to perform.
Earlier
that morning, I had enjoyed breakfast with the team at a nearby hotel. Later, I
stood in the tunnel, as the teams ran onto the field. I was faint with the
tension and excitement of it. I was not conscious of it at the time but this
was history in the making! I looked up at the bright blue sky and then turned
towards our beloved Table
Mountain. I stood there,
as if in a dream, not as a reporter, not as an official; not as a member of
staff or of the organizing Committee, but merely as the fundraiser of a local
charity, whose sole mandate was to feed thousands of hungry primary school
children from schools around the Cape
Peninsula. Children who
came from such impoverished homes, that they left home hungry every morning,
having had nothing to eat since the night before. As any teacher will tell you,
"you can't teach a hungry child!"
It was
those few words and my own passionate belief in them, that had given me the
courage and the strength to approach the rugby authorities with an idea. After
what seems, in retrospect, very little negotiation on my part, they agreed to
let our Charity run a fundraising competition around the world cup. The main
prize, to be awarded to a school child, would be two tickets to the world cup
match to be played at Newlands Stadium!
This was indeed a great opportunity for
our Charity. It would not only generate much needed funds, which would go
directly towards providing more school meals, but it would give us wonderful
publicity in all the local papers. So I was there on that special day, to see
the winner, a young primary school boy and his father, take up their prize.
I watched
the match in luxury, from the VIP lounge. During the curtain raiser, I called
some cousins of mine, great rugby fans, whom I knew would be glued to their
television set and asked them as a joke, to guess where I was!
They
couldn't of course and they were more than a little surprised. Knowing me as
they did, it would have seemed most unlikely!
I do
believe that most of the country came to stand still whilst those matches were
played. Thousands upon thousands of South Africans cried when Madiba, dressed
in our team's Springbok jersey, watched the final match, when Joel Stransky took
that winning kick and won the game and the cup for South Africa. As Madiba held up
that "Golden Cup" before handing it to the Springbok Captain, Francois
Pienaar, the crowd went wild and grown men cried.
Talk of the
World Cup went on for months. Photographs flooded every newspaper and magazine
and then as these things do, the excitement gradually faded and life returned
to normal.
Years
later, came the talk of "INVICTUS", a movie to be made with the great
Madiba and the World Cup, as it's central theme.
Paging
through our local newspapers one evening, I noticed an advertisement placed by
a casting agency. They were asking for people to audition for the crowd scenes
for the movie. I called the following morning. A day or two later, I was
interviewed, measured and photographed and told that I would be contacted in
due course. I did not hold much hope but, lo and behold, the call came and I
had been accepted.
So once
again, I would be at the famous stadium in Newlands, but this time not in the
"royal" box, as it were, but on one of the stands, waving a flag and
shouting my lungs out! Me, a pensioner, a grandmother, a lover of books and art
and music, being filmed at a rugby match? For a real, full length Hollywood style movie? Of
course, I would be lost in the crowd, so it did not really count, I thought.
It just
could not be me, never! Was this really happening? Had I really got out of bed
at four thirty that morning, to report to the agency by five thirty? Had I
really just eaten an absurdly lavish breakfast, laid on by special caterers,
for everyone gathered there?
The answer
was yes, to all of that, because life is full of wonderful surprises and we
never really know what is waiting for us, just around that proverbial corner
and that is what makes life so exciting.
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